June 24th-Home From Hungary

Dear Ones,

We are driving home from Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia. It is Sunday at 2:30pm and Georg(our GPS) says we have five hours to go before reaching Frankfurt. Dad is driving and I thought this would a be good use of my time to write the blog as I was unable to get it written last week. I hope this finds all of you doing well and have had a good Sunday and Weekend.

Two weeks ago, we were busy in the office preparing for this past week as we knew we would be out of town most of it. A Week ago today we had a lovely Sunday. Because it was Fathers Day, we went downtown Frankfurt after church and spent a couple of hours just walking along the Main. Down one side and up the other. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was just what Dad wanted to do and He needed to just relax. The Saturday before I attended a Stake Sisters conference, Reingard ask me to sing in a four some. It was simple. We sang it’s a small world. It was Ok. What we do for our friends ! After the event we drove to Rodenbach and took Reingard to dinner with us. William was out of town for most of the weekend.

Monday, we completed preparations for our trip to Hungary. Tuesday, we worked until noon, then off to the temple for the 1PM session, then home to change and pick up our bags and off to Pilsen, in the Czech Republic . It is the 4^th largest city in Czech and is the home of the Skoda Car Manufacturer and the world famous Pilsen Beer. We enjoyed our little walk in the old town and dinner. And No, we did not try the beer.

Wednesday , we drove to Budapest, Hungary. There to meet E/S Denise and Donna Smith. They are Wheel Chair specialists who came from Washington State to assess our NGO and help us with the new Wheelchair project we are beginning in Hungary. The church no longer just gives out the wheelchairs. Now, the church wants each wheelchair to be fitted personally to each receipient. It is the way it should be done. So, each organization which distributes these wheelchairs must now have trained individuals that are able to assess the individuals ability to function in a wheelchair effectively and then fit the chair to the individual This training is done by Therapist who come from the US. This will be a lot of work to organize and execute. So On Thursday we meet with MEOSZ, the organization we are working with. We spent the entire morning discussing the details of the new program then the four of us took Julia ( our contact person in the Organization) and our translator out to lunch. It was a good meeting. We also used the time to discuss the on going Food and Nutrition Project with our translator who is involved with this project. Our next step is to purchase fruit trees. We had a productive day. We returned to the hotel to work on emails and other business concer Then we went to see the Cathedral and Old Castle, now museum, on the Buda side of the Danube River. It was a good day.

This was a new site for us in Budapest. Along the Danube river for quite a distance, the bank was lined with these bronze shoes representing the 100,000 plus Jews who died in Nazi Concentration Camps between 1936 and 1945. What a sobering Memorial to these people. Lest we forget.

This was taken standing on the garden area surrounding the old government building on the Buda side of the River. We are looking at the new government building on the Pest side of the Danube

Friday, the four of us drove to Slovakia, Banska Stiavnica where our missionary couple assigned to Slovakia has organized a wheelchair training and distribution for this coming week. E/S Smith will be overseeing this and helping with this training.

This city is on the list of the UNESCO World History Sites. This city dates back to the Roman times. One of the Largest in that era of time. It is a mining community that was rich in Gold and Silver. The city is an intact medevil city with mines that run under the city and surrounding area. The first School of Mining was begun in this city in 1745 or so. This was the first school of Mining in the World.

On Friday we had a little time to explore the Mine Museum and take a tour of one of the Mines. It was fun. We had a great dinner of Goulash that was really good. We stayed in the Cosmopolitan Pension, built for a mine Administrator in the 17 Century. We enjoyed the ambiance. You can see us in our mining gear for the tour

Our visit there coincided with the annual Meeting of the Mine Guilds from all over Slovakia. So the place was packed with miners. Saturday morning, as we sat in the breakfast room being trained by the Smith’s we heard the Band for their annual parade. So we were able to see a little history in action. The Parade began with t

hese cut little children. The first group are the modern day miners. The second group in Black represent the garb of the Russian Miners, The early German miners wore White and the group with the black out fits represent the Slavic and Hu

ngarian miners. Bringing up the Rear are the cut little girls dancing and twirling in there native costumes. The parade continued with groups of miners and family members from Cities all over Europe.

Then, the rest of our missionary crew arrived and we drove to the School where the training is taking place on Monday. The crew consisted of, 4 couple missionaries from the surrounding area. We put together Rough Rider Wheelchairs and a good time was had by all.

On our return to the Hotel we decided to see one of the castles of this city so we just began to drive in the location we could see. One of the gentlemen who works for the NGO who was distributing the wheelchairs could see we were looking for something so we stopped to ask him directions. He not only took us there but made the Hike up to the Top. As It turned out this is a sacred Place to the Catholics. There are stations showing the life of the Savior with statues and Painting in shrine like buildings. It was lovely.

They all left to return to their various locations and 2 couples will return today. We would have liked to stay for the weeks training but we must get home today to prepare all that is needed for the end of the month and prepare for Heidi and Roberts Visit for which we are so excited.